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THE SINGER OF THE SEA 



INA D. COOLBRITH 



PUBLISHED BY S 7 j J "J 2-^ 



THE CENTURY CLUB OF CALIFORNIA 
December, 1894 



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Copyrighted 1894, by the Century Club of California 



THE SINGER OF THE SEA 



In Memory of Celia Thaxter. 



There is shadow on the sea ! 
And a murmur, and a moan, 
In its muffled monotone. 
Like a solemn threnody ; 
And the sea-gulls, on their white 
Pinions, moving to and fro, 



Are like phantoms, in their flight; 
As they sweep from off the gray, 
Misty headlands, far away, 
And about the Beacon Light, 
Wheel in circles, low and slow, 
Wheel and circle, peer and cry, 
As though seeking, restlessly. 
Something vanished from their sight. 
As though listening for the clear 
Tones they never more may hear, — 
Music, missing from the day. 
Music, missing from the night, — 
Through the years, that wax and wane, 
That may never sound again. 



She, who ever loved the sea, 
Lo\;.ed and voiced its minstrelsy, — 
Sang its white- caps, tossing free, 
Sang the ceaseless breaker-shocks. 
Dashing, crashing, on the rocks. 
Sang its moon-drawn tides, its speech, 
Silver-soft, upon the beach, 
Walks the margin's golden floor, — 
Floats upon its breast no more. 



Nay! how know we this to be? 
That the forms we may not see, 
Passed from mortal touch and ken, 



Never come to ^arth again? 

When this brittle house of clay 

From the spirit breaks away, 

Does the mind forego its will? 

Is the voice's music still? 

Do the hands forget their skill? 

From that harp— great Homer's heart,- 

Do no mighty numbers come? 

Lost, divinest Raphael's art, 

And the lips of Shakespeare dumb? 

All the years of joy and pain 

That are lived, but lived in vain; 

Memory's graven page a blot. 

Unrecorded and forgot! 



Oh, believe, believe it not ! 

Man is God's incarnate thought: 

Life, with all the gifts He gave, 

All the wondrous powers He wrought, 

Finds not ending at the grave. 

Part, himself, of Deity, 

Man, the spirit, cannot die. 

^^In my Father's house there are 

Many mansions ^ Did Christ say 

Whether near, or whether far? 

It may be beside us still 

Bide these forms invisible ; 

Or, if passed to realms away. 

Beyond sight's remotest star, 



Does that bind the soul to stay,— 
Never, never, to retrace 
The golden passage-ways of space ?- 
As a parted child might yearn 
For the mother arms, and turn. 
Fain to look on Earth's dear face. 
*Twixt the heart that loves and her 
Space could place no barrier: 
Thought, that swifter is than light, 
Leaps a universe in flight. 

So I love to think, indeed, 
That this singing spirit, freed 
From her lesser, lower height— 



Soaring to the Infinite, — 
Turns with loving eyes, and smile, 
Still unto her garden-isle ; 
Sees the tower's beacon-light, 
Shining safely through the night ; 
Sees the white surf as it rolls 
Round her treasured Isles of Shoals, 
Looking from that vaster sea, 
Which we name Eternity. 



C. A. Murdock & Co., Printers 



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